Work of art: Collection, assemblage, and utopia in the work of Georges Adéagbo

The article presents the work of Beninese artist Georges Adéagbo, known for his complex displays of found objects, texts, sculptures, elements of pop and high culture, images of the mass-media world, culturally and temporally diverse signs and symbols that converse with local tales, exemplifying the often controversial relationship between conservation and memory. Such archival assemblages include a variety of ethnographic sources and fragments, giving a decentered perspective that evolves to a reflection about global political matters and interrogates dominant and commonsense narratives. Adéagbo’s work advances in that extended area of intercultural contact in which the languages of art and anthropology maintain a close and complex relationship. Analyzing this relationship, the article focuses on the role played by the artist, the museums, the art critics, and the curators in the production of value and consumption of otherness in a globalized cultural context.